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Monday, December 12, 2011

The end of an era...

My baby girl, my only baby is off to prep next year (for those non-Queenslanders, Prep is the year before grade 1 but is now a level taught at the school and requires a school uniform) I am prepared for any meltdown that may occur with this huge life altering event for us. I am fully aware that I will be at home practically full time (albeit working for hubby and studying) and will not have any little people underfoot. In some small ways I am a little excited, although my life will be dictated by school drop off and pick ups - I will have that time in between for ME to do with as I will. In other ways that small pang is always there, lying dormant and at this point managed and almost accepted. I pretty much know I won't have another child. I have spent many dollars on therapy to come to terms with that thought and as each day goes by, though it still stings I feel a little more at ease I guess with my decision. I still have moments (like when this blasted Endometriosis and the darn pill sentence is playing up I think to myself if only I were pregnant...) but for the most part I am now calm and accepting of the fact it didn't happen. I no longer tear up when explaining to people that it just didn't happen.

Many, many months ago, I offered to give away our cot to some flood affected victims. I've spent the past several months putting it off because I just couldn't part with it. Not when I was going to therapy to get my head around NOT having any more children when I had always expected that we would have 2 or 3 kids and they would all use the same equipment. It was a silly little dream of mine and for that reason, I didn't call. I didn't measure the cot. I fluctuated in feeling really guilty for having offered something and not delivering to just not being capable of picking up that phone! It was a very hard few months and letting go of it (the cot) was like the final nail in the coffin so to speak about the baby subject.

I finally made that call today and it turns out she doesn't need it any longer (felt slightly bad about being so uber slack in my promise and apologised profusely… how can I explain it when it sounds so silly to myself.) so after ending that phone call I immediately phoned my neighbour and said The cot is all yours. You see my neighbours' gorgeous daughter who lives a few hours away had a little girl last weekend and is coming down to visit for Christmas and my neighbour needed some baby equipment.

They came and picked it up this afternoon, along with the porta-cot, bouncinette, high chair and are possibly coming back to collect the pram, change table and play pen. I'm not sure how I feel, my beautiful neighbour kept saying but you might have another baby. I told her quite upfront that it didn't happen for us and I don't fall pregnant easily and that was it. End of story. End of an era.

I keep telling myself that it was just stuff. Stuff that we have kept & stored for nearly five years and it was time for this stuff to go.

I feel less tied down knowing all that stuff is no longer in the cupboard awaiting that what if scenario. I feel less weighted down knowing that it's now gone and I guess like any type of de-cluttering, I am de-cluttering a part of my soul.

So why does the heart constrict that little tiny bit. I know that I can easily buy new stuff when and if the need arises. New stuff isn't bad, it just means a new era.

I couldn't hand over the froggy cot quilt that I bought. It came out ready to give away, but immediately got returned back into the storage bag :( I guess some things are more than just 'stuff'

End'o the road & beyond

Mum. Wife. Writer. Dreamer.

My place in the world to scribble my past, write my present and draw my future - along the way, sharing the road I am travelling to find ME. Behind me, the road was rocky and filled with bends and potholes. Ahead there are steep hills to climb and forks to explore. It may not be paved in yellow brick, but it is a path to the end'o the road & beyond... Destination as yet unknown.